Riveting Twitter narrative of robotic surgery at St. Luke’s

If you still think Twitter’s all about what-I’m-having-for-breakfast, you probably weren’t following the @StLukesCR Twitter feed this morning and early afternoon: That was the fourth 0f 126 tweets in a live twittercast of a robotic surgery at St. Luke’s Hospital in Cedar Rapids Monday by Sarah Corizzo, media relations specialist/writer for St. Luke’s, author of [...]

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News companies need to help local businesses pursue mobile opportunities

To read all three of my “mobile-first strategy” posts as a pdf with a table of contents, scroll to the bottom of this post. When I try out a new app for my iPhone, I think of opportunities the news business missed years ago. More importantly, I think of opportunities we need to pursue today. [...]

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Getting started in Twitter

I’ll be teaching Using Social Media for Business three evenings this week, Tuesday through Thursday at Kirkwood Community College (the Marion center). I think you can still register for the course. The first night, we’ll have a brief overview of why social media are an important development in digital communication and their roots in other [...]

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My local tweeps share social media advice for businesses

In the spirit of social media, I asked my tweeps for their advice on using social media for business. I’m teaching a course, Using Social Media for Business, starting Tuesday evening at Kirkwood Community College. I think you can still register for the course. I know a lot about using social media for journalism and [...]

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Another view on Newspapers’ “Original Sin,” from Howard Owens

Howard Owens has weighed in with his view on what the newspaper industry’s “Original Sin” was in the early days of the Internet: Alan Mutter says we screwed up by failing to charge for content. I say not only was that not a mistake, but many newspapers did try to charge for content. I have [...]

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Resources for journalism educators on digital ethics, new business models, journalism

I was privileged yesterday to be panelist for a discussion about the future of journalism education. I am pleased that journalism educators are considering the important issues for the future of journalism and the news business and hopeful that this means they will be teaching the right issues and skills and contributing valuable research. I [...]

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Chris O’Brien responds about data and newspaper readership

A recent post that I wrote included some hearty debate in the comments between Tim O’Brien of the New York Times and me (with several other people weighing in). That debate for a couple weeks didn’t include the person whose post launched the discussion, Chris O’Brien (no relation to Tim apparently) of the San Jose [...]

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Remembering the Register’s Carter-Kennedy debate

Being the spouse of a young editor at a morning newspaper doesn’t carry a lot of perks, unless you like being alone in the evening. I thought I had delivered a perk to Mimi in 1980 when I was an editor on the city desk of The Des Moines Register. The Register was going to be hosting the [...]

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C3 picks up key endorsement

OK, I couldn’t resist, when @OliviaMitchell tweeted about a web site that lets you have Albert Einstein write your message, I had to give it a try:

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Social media help old friends connect in person

I was busy enough in June that I didn’t take time to blog about an interesting social-media experience. But when a similar thing happened this week, I decided it was time to take note. I can’t recall how I first learned about TripIt, though it probably was from Mark Briggs, who was my first TripIt [...]

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Join a live chat about transforming the news business

I am pleased to be involved this week in a discussion of ways to transform the news business. Nothing could be more important for our industry now and I will be discussing this topic Thursday at 2 p.m. Eastern time (1 p.m. Central) in a live chat hosted by the American Society of News Editors.

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Yes! New Business Models embrace new relationships

I am excited about the New Business Models for News project. Not that I think they got it right. My first two comments on their site after they released their models and spreadsheets of financial figures for the first three years were critical. But what they do have right is the approach of openly consulting [...]

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